Talk:Durgadas Rathore
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Shiv,
The folklore I heard when I used to live in Jodhpur was something like this.
Some of the camels of the Maharaja of Jodhpur Jaswant Singh strayed into Durgadas's father Askaran's fields for grazing. Durgadas, who was a mere child at that time, objected to the camel herder against this. The herder acted haughty because the camels belonged to the Maharaja. Durgadas got angry and severed the head of one of the camel with one stoke of his sword. The herder panicked and quickly pulled out of the field with the remaining camels.
When the complaint reached Maharaja Jaswant Singh, he summoned Askaran and Durgadas in his presence. When Durgadas went to his court, the Maharaja was astonished to discover that he was still a child. Maharaja refused to believe that a kid so small can actually behead a camel. Durga Das on the other hand fearlessly admitted to killing the camel. The Maharaja asked Durga Das to prove it. Durga Das soon got hold of some camel from somewhere and beheaded it with one sword stroke in the Maharaja's presence. Jaswant Singh was immensely pleased by this daring kid and took him into his service. From then onwards Durga Das rose on to become the most trusted Rajput Sardar of Rathore Royal House.
I don't know which version is most accurate. can you do some more research on this and find out more about this incident of Durga Das's life.
Regards Sisodia
- Sisodia,
- What I wrote is based on books by Sukhvir Singh Gehlote and Raghubir Sinh (Present Sitamau ruler. He is a rathore). They both mention he killed the raika and for this murder he was summoned by the king. Asakaran almost disowned Durga in the court but Maharaja was very impressed by Durga's candor and made sure that Durga Das remained in Jodhpur. During battle of Dharmath against Aurangzeb Durgadas changed four horses and lost about half a dozen swords (they broke due to intense fighting) and he finally fell down half dead. Maharaja ordered him to be carried away. After his wounds healed he promptly rejoined Maharaja's army. Note in this war rathores fought with utmost valor but the muslim commander sent by ShahJahan to assist Maharaja Jaswant Singh changed sides and joined Aurangzeb. Because of this war Aurangzeb never liked Jaswant Singh. Aurang knew that Jaswant lost not because of lack of valor but because of realpolitik by Aurang. He was always scared of Jaswant Singh. Shivraj Singh 17:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Moving from Rajput page for use here
After Akbar in his line, few generations later, came Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb did not like Maharaja Jaswant Singh, ruler of Marwar. When Jaswant Singh Rathore died he had no son and this gave Aurangzeb a chance to appoint a Muslim as the ruler of Marwar. This upset Rathore Rajputs a lot. Two of Jaswant Singh's queens were pregnant when Jaswant Singh died. One queen gave birth to Ajit Singh and other to Dalathamban. After Ajit's birth, Rathore generals, chief among them was Durga Das Rathore (a Karnot Rathore) went to Delhi along with the queens and the infants, and asked Aurangzeb that crown of Marwar should be given to Ajit Singh. Aurangzeb was very cunning and he had no intention of handing over the throne of Marwar. He suggested that Ajit should grow up in his {{Harem|harem]] but internally he wanted to kill them all. Durga Das sensed this and they smuggled Ajit Singh out of Delhi to the outskirts of the city. When Mughal army came to capture them in Delhi Durga Das and his men attacked the Mughals and started riding out of Delhi. Raghunandan Bhati and others soaked the streets of Delhi in crimson by flowing the blood of mughal pursuers. There were about three hundred Rajputs with Durga Das and there were thousands of pursuing Mughals. Every so often 15 - 20 Rajputs would fall behind attack the Mughal pursuers and in the process get themselves killed but it allowed the forward party to create some distance between Ajit and the Mughals. This continued till the evening by which time the Mughals had given up and Durga Das was left with just seven men out of three hundred he started with and reached Jaipur along with Ajit Singh.
Thereby started the 30 year Rajput rebellion against Aurangzeb. Mewar and Marwar forces combined together and almost killed Aurangzeb when he was trapped in the mountains of Rajasthan but the Mewar king out of magnanimity allowed Aurangzeb to escape.
All the trade routes were plundered by Rajputs and they started looting various treasuries of Rajasthan and Gujarat. To crush them Aurangzeb sent many expeditions but no success. These expeditions and drying up of revenue from trade routes running through Rajasthan had severe effect on his resources.
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This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 17:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
